Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : TOKYO, JAPAN
Tarikh/Date : 08-06-2001
Tajuk/Title : THE 7TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON THE FUTURE OF ASIA-NIKKEI
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
" BEYOND GLOBALISM AND GLOBALISATION "
Perhaps it is too much to expect to foresee what
will be the situation in the world beyond
globalisation, considering that we are only just into
globalisation and we are not only unable to fully
comprehend it but quite obviously we are making a mess
of it.
2. Only a few years back we were all opening our arms
to welcome globalisation. We had become a global
village. Modern technology had enabled instant
communication, instant sound and sights across the
vastness of continents. We could actually commute
almost halfway across the world to breakfast and to
meet and still be back home for dinner with our
families.
3. No country could isolate or insulate itself.
Privacy, even of individuals was becoming more and more
difficult. Prying eyes looked down on us from outer
space or sometimes from much lower down. A global
village is really smaller than an ordinary village in
terms of visibility for it is quite roofless.
4. There is no doubt about the benefits of unlimited
communication. We can be lost in the ocean or the
desert and yet be able to talk to people and indicate
our position through the magic of cellular telephony.
We can see things even as they happen on the other side
of the world.
5. We know a lot more about our environment and the
danger it is faced with. And we know how we can
preserve it. We know of the species which are about to
be extinct and our need to save them. The regions
which we once considered as hostile to Men, which we
avoided or we tried to eliminate before, we now wish to
preserve and we can pour in billions for the
preservation of these places.
6. Technology advanced, is advancing and will advance
ever more rapidly. There is nothing that technology
cannot do. If an animal, a fish or a plant is not big
enough, we can double their sizes and their food
contents. The Genetically Modified Salmon is three
times bigger, the vegetable more green and nutritious
and cattle yield the exact combination of fat and
protein and carbohydrate to suit our taste-buds, and
perhaps our health.
7. We humans can do anything. We merely have to
decide what we want and somewhere in the world there
will be scientists who will produce it for us. We
don't have to give birth to babies anymore, we can
clone them. Why should anyone give birth naturally and
painfully or even by Caesarean Section? Why not
produce perfect replicas of ourselves with all the
characteristics we like best?
8. We can reach the moon and the stars. So far we
have found them uninhabited, but should there be any
creature out there with the audacity to challenge us,
we will blast them into nothingness with our ray guns.
What a glorious future for the arms makers. We will
all have to buy laser guns to blast the Martians and
the Venusians into empty space. We will fight
terrestrial wars too, for we cannot give up our
addiction to it. We are busy inventing and producing
ever newer weapons which we must try out in real life.
How else can we know whether they work or not.
9. Well this could be the post-globalisation
scenario. But I hope and pray that this will not be.
And this will not be only if we take a grip of
ourselves and we refuse to become the captives of mad
scientists and their fantastic technologies. Simply
because we can do something, simply because we can now
play God, does not mean we should play God. We can, if
we want to, destroy humanity completely. Between
Russia and the U.S. there are enough nuclear warheads
to pulverise the whole planet. But we won't do it
because we know that truly will be the end of history.
10. Similarly we will not clone ourselves. We will
not do it because we cannot interfere too much with
God's work, which others prefer to call nature. Look
at what happened when they imported rabbits into
Australia and then they brought European dogs to kill
the rabbits.
11. We are more concerned now about preserving the
trees and the forests, and the animals. But we go too
far sometimes. We deny the poor in the world living
space for themselves because we want their countries to
become Carbon Sinks. Yet the protected animals are
allowed to destroy the forests and even kill and eat
humans. The man being eaten by the tiger must
appreciate that he is helping to preserve an endangered
species.
12. We are more civilized now but the lunatic fringe
keeps pushing us to go too far. We are going too far
with our globalisation also. We want globalisation to
be totally unregulated, to be left to the markets to
govern it. But the market is about making profits,
maximising profits. In the process it is likely to
leave a trail of disasters and tragedies. But never
mind, the important thing is that globalisation must be
accompanied by market deregulation. As long as the
global marketplace is deregulated what happens to
people does not matter. The system has become more
important than the people it is supposed to serve.
13. Remember Socialism and Communism? They were all
responses and reactions to the inequities and the
oppressions in human societies. The great thinkers of
the time believed that if men were made absolutely
equal, then they would enjoy a life free of oppression,
free of envy, free of conflicts and of war. They
believed that all that man wanted was to be equal and
free. They invented the slogan "Liberte, Egalite,
Fraternite" and they made a religion of it.
14. But egalitarianism led instead to oppressive
dictatorships; the massacres of millions in order to
achieve equality, freedom and the brotherhood of men.
For many who did not take kindly to the ideology there
was no liberte and no fraternite. There was only
oppression and death.
15. In the end these great dreams, these ideologies
were recognised for what they were, the cause of
further sufferings and the deaths of millions. And
they were discarded.
16. Democracy too will go this way, not because it is
a bad system but because it keeps on being interpreted
and embellished. At first democracy was only about
majority rule. Then minority rights was added, then
individual rights. These rights were constantly being
broadened so that in the end they became more important
than majority rights. The Government may be elected by
the majority but minorities may bring it down by street
violence helped by the media and even foreign
interests. The rule of law is advocated but this
simply means that those opposed to the Government may
break the law but the Government may not enforce the
law against them.
17. Then along came the Non-Governmental Organisation
to claim the right to frustrate popularly elected
Governments. They may be made up of only one person
but they get wide publicity and support; they may use
illegal means. They can become extremely powerful and
frequently Governments of the majority have to bow to
them.
18. Democracy is now no longer about the rule of the
majority. Indeed in many cases the elections to gain
majority support is an exercise in futility. For
promptly the popularly elected Government is hamstrung
and rendered impotent. The wishes of the majority, the
largely silent majority is ignored while the
Governments struggle to placate the activist minority.
19. Now the minority has become more violent and
lawfully elected Governments have been toppled by the
illegal activities of the few, the street mobs. In the
meantime the country becomes unstable, unable to
develop and for many developing countries, their
freedom is lost. The people suffer, as law and order
breaks down, ethnic and religious clashes escalate, and
thousands are killed. Mob rule has become more
democratic than majority rule.
20. Democracy has been abused until everything can be
done in the name of democracy. The promised better
life has not materialised. Instead people are
suffering more than ever, more even than when they had
authoritarian rule, because of democracy. The time
will surely come when democracy will go the way of
Socialism and Communism. It is not because democracy
is bad. It is still the best system of governance.
But democracy has been so abused that it is no longer
able to benefit either the majority or the minority.
21. Today democracy still reigns supreme. To
criticise it is to be heretical and to expose oneself
to vilification. But eventually the damage will be so
evident and so great that democracy will become a bad
word just as proletarian dictatorship is a bad word,
and it will be rejected.
22. But this need not happen. Democracy can be saved
if it is not regarded as perfect, if its weaknesses and
defects are recognised and remedies made and excesses
curbed.
23. And now we have globalisation, a great idea whose
time has come. But already it has started on the wrong
foot. Currency manipulations across borders and the
economic and financial catastrophes such as those in
Orange County, in Brazil, in Mexico, in Russia and of
course in East Asia which followed this particular
manifestation of globalisation do not augur well for
the future of globalisation. The victims are told it
is free trade and therefore it must be good.
24. But must we have horrendous disasters as a price
for globalisation? Cannot there be globalisation
without the pain, unbearable pain? The answer is of
course there can be. Globalisation need not be
accompanied by total deregulation. The two are not the
same. Some regulations can make globalisation not only
less destructive but also beneficial all round.
25. The assumption that markets will regulate
themselves is contrary to logic or human nature. The
market is about making profits, maximum profits. It is
not a social organisation intended to cure social ills.
It is not even about fairness and justice and good
governance.
26. The market especially the free market operates by
defeating competition. To do this well the players
must be strong and ruthless. And so we see the mergers
of the giants and the mergers of the merged giants.
The idea is to be so big and therefore so strong that
competition would be one sided. The smaller groups
will either lose and be destroyed, resulting in
terrible social and economic damage or they can submit
to being taken over. Eventually there can be only one
player in one industry. Then competition would cease
and the winner will become an arrogant and domineering
entity, optimising profits at the expense of quality,
efficiency and social considerations.
27. The world will be badly served by the monopolistic
giants, which may gang up in order to be even more
powerful. Governments will not be able to control them
because Governments will depend entirely on them. In
fact they will determine who will govern countries.
Their control will now become absolute. Big Brother,
big capital will rule the world and the poor and the
weak will just have to submit.
28. Oligopolies and monopolies need not be an
essential feature of globalisation. There could be
statutory limits to mergers and the size of
corporations. In any business a sufficiently large
number of players must be ensured. Competition must be
governed by a set of rules to ensure not just a level
playing field but the contestants are fairly evenly
matched. There must be banks and businesses which are
national and those which are international. The weak
must be protected according to a set of internationally
agreed rules.
29. An international currency should be created which
belongs to no one country. Rates of exchange should be
based on this one currency which can be used for
payment of all international trade. Earnings in this
currency must be immediately deposited with a nation's
central bank, and local currency issued for local
transactions. The reserves must be held in this
international currency only and not a basket of
currencies.
30. Currencies must never be traded as commodities.
Should there be a need to devalue against the
international currency, a panel of central banks and
the International Bank should determine the proper
exchange rate. No country should dominate
international finance and commerce.
31. If we are prepared to be pragmatic and fair, if we
are ready to curb the excesses of democracy and
globalisation and to determine the right levels that
will be suitable and acceptable in any particular
country, if we are prepared to give up the idea of
being dominant because we are the richest and the most
powerful then we can look with hope beyond
globalisation.
32. Globalisation today ignores the very poor. In a
globalised world wealth distribution should be equally
global. But it is not.
33. The world of today is extremely rich. A
combination of technologies and natural resources have
made unlimited wealth creation possible. There is more
than enough wealth to wipe out global poverty
completely.
34. The financial system of a globalised world is now
confined to a free flow of capital. Those who profit
from such flows must be prepared to pay a global levy.
The levy should be based on the GDP of nations.
35. Voluntary aid to the poor is now anathema to the
rich. The levy should be for statutory aid. It should
be for the building of needed infrastructures such as
roads, canals, railroads, ports, airports, power, water
to stimulate growth.
36. The levy should be administered by an
International agency including the construction of the
infrastructure by international constructors. Sub-
contracts and supplies should come from the locals.
The benefits would obviously be evenly distributed.
The infrastructure built will enable products to be
exported and imported at lower cost. World trade will
certainly grow and poverty eradicated.
37. Altogether the levy would be a win-win formula.
No one will lose. The whole world will be enriched.
The poor countries will be less poor and will truly
become a part of the globalised world. Globalisation
would then be meaningful as it involves the whole
globe, the whole world.
38. The rich will not take kindly to this idea of
course. But if they expect that the poor should always
accept ideas which benefit the rich, then the rich
should also be prepared to accept ideas which benefit
the poor, especially when the rich will benefit as
well.
39. Even as in a country the poor have a right to some
of the wealth of the country, a globalised world must
accord the poor similar rights. If the poor cannot
expect this then why should they accept globalisation?
40. So what is there beyond globalism and
globalisation? There could be total oppression of the
weak by the strong as capitalism run riot. Or there
could be a world democracy where the resources of the
world are combined with human ingenuity to create the
greatest human civilisation ever.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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